The battle of Friedland
June 14, 1807
The Battle of Friedland (June 14, 1807) saw Napoleon’s French army decisively defeat Bennigsen’s Russian army about twenty-seven miles (43 km) southeast of Königsberg, effectively ending the Fourth Coalition against Napoleon. After nearly twenty-three hours of fighting, the French were in complete control of the battlefield and the Russian army was retreating chaotically over the Alle River, where many soldiers drowned while trying to escape.
Friedland effectively brought the Fourth Coalition to an end. On July 7, 1807, Russia and France signed the Treaty of Tilsit, which made the two nations allies after two years of war. France signed a separate treaty with Prussia two days later to ostracize her from the main negotiations. The public terms of Tilsit mentioned the warm feelings between Napoleon and Alexander, but the secret terms addressed more substantial issues: France permitted Russia to do as it wished with the Ottoman Empire in return for gaining the Dalmatian coast and the Ionian Islands, Russia was given a free hand in Finland, and Alexander also agreed to join the Continental System if the war with Britain did not end soon. In the other treaty, France ensured that Prussia was humiliated. All Prussian territory west of the Elbe River was transformed into the new Kingdom of Westphalia, whose king was to be Napoleon’s own brother, Jérôme. Tilsit is traditionally regarded as the height of Napoleon’s empire
The battle
The Russian forces under General Golitsyn had driven off the French cavalry outposts from Friedland on the 13th, and Bennigsen’s main body began to occupy the town at night. The army of Napoleon was set in motion for Friedland, but it was still dispersed on its various march routes, and the first stage of the engagement was a purely situational battle. The corps of Marshal Lannes engaged the Russians first in the Sortlack Wood and in front of Posthenen (2.30-3 A.M. on the 14th). Both sides now used their cavalry freely to cover the formation of lines of battle, and a race between the rival squadrons for the possession of Heinrichsdorf ended in favor of the French under Grouchy.
In the meantime Lannes was fighting hard to hold Bennigsen. Napoleon feared that the Russians meant to evade him again, but by 6 a.m. Bennigsen had nearly 50,000 men across the river and forming up west of Friedland. His infantry, organized in two lines, extended between the Heinrichsdorf-Friedland road and the upper bends of the river along with the artillery. Beyond the right of the infantry, cavalry and Cossacks extended the line to the wood northeast of Heinrichsdorf. Small bodies of Cossacks penetrated even to Schwonau. The left wing also had some cavalry and, beyond the Alle river, batteries were brought into action to cover it. A heavy and indecisive fire-fight raged in the Sortlack Wood between the Russian skirmishers and some of Lannes’s troops.
The head of Mortier’s (French and Polish) corps appeared at Heinrichsdorf and the Cossacks were driven out of Schwonau. Lannes held his own, and by noon Napoleon arrived with 40,000 French troops at the scene of the action. Napoleon’s orders were brief: Ney’s corps was to take the line between Postlienen and the Sortlack Wood, Lannes closing on his left, to form the centre, Mortier at Heinrichsdorf the left wing. I Corps under General Victor and the Imperial Guard were placed in reserve behind Posthenen. Cavalry masses were collected at Heinrichsdorf. The main attack was to be delivered against the Russian left, which Napoleon saw at once to be cramped in the narrow tongue of land between the river and the Posthenen mill-stream. Three cavalry divisions were added to the general reserve.
The course of the previous operations had been such that both armies still had large detachments out towards Königsberg. The afternoon was spent by the emperor in forming up the newly arrived masses, the deployment being covered by an artillery bombardment. At 5 o’clock all was ready, and Ney, preceded by a heavy artillery fire, rapidly carried the Sortlack Wood. The attack was pushed on toward the Alle. One of Ney’s divisions (Marchand) drove part of the Russian left into the river at Sortlack. A furious charge of cavalry against Marchand’s left was repulsed by the dragoon division of Latour-Maubourg.
Soon the Russians were huddled together in the bends of the Alle, an easy target for the guns of Ney and of the reserve. Ney’s attack indeed came eventually to a standstill; Bennigsen’s reserve cavalry charged with great effect and drove him back in disorder. As at Eylau, the approach of night seemed to preclude a decisive success, but in June and on firm ground the old mobility of the French reasserted its value. The infantry division of Dupont advanced rapidly from Posthenen, the cavalry divisions drove back the Russian squadrons into the now congested masses of infantry on the river bank, and finally the artillery general Sénarmont advanced a mass of guns to case-shot range.
It was the first example of the terrible artillery preparations of modern warfare, and the Russian defence collapsed in a few minutes. Ney’s exhausted infantry were able to pursue the broken regiments of Bennigsen’s left into the streets of Friedland. Lannes and Mortier had all this time held the Russian centre and right on its ground, and their artillery had inflicted severe losses. When Friedland itself was seen to be on fire, the two marshals launched their infantry attack. Fresh French troops approached the battlefield. Dupont distinguished himself for the second time by fording the mill-stream and assailing the left flank of the Russian centre. This offered stubborn resistance, but the French steadily forced the line backwards, and the battle was soon over.
The losses incurred by the Russians in retreating over the river at Friedland were very heavy, many soldiers being drowned. Farther north the still unbroken troops of the right wing drew off by the Allenburg road; the French cavalry of the left wing, though ordered to pursue, remaining, for some reason, inactive. French casualties hovered around 8,000 while the Russians suffered nearly 20,000 in dead and wounded.
Results
The thorough destruction of Bennigsen’s army persuaded Czar Alexander I to seek peace terms five days after the battle. The following negotiations led to the Treaty of Tilsit in July, spelling the end of the War of the Fourth Coalition.